THIRD ROUND OF THE MESICIC CONCLUDES
SUCCESSFULLY;
FOURTH ROUND, INCLUDING ON-SITE VISITS, BEGINS
The Committee of Experts of the Mechanism for Follow-Up Mechanism on the
Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESICIC)
held its Nineteenth Meeting on September 12 to 16, 2011. During this
meeting, it adopted important decisions that represent significant
progress in the process of cooperation for the implementation of the
Convention that is being undertaken in the framework of this Mechanism.
With the approval of these decisions, which first dealt with the
adoption of the country reports for Grenada, Suriname, Brazil, and
Belize, the Third Round of Review came to a successful conclusion.
During this Round, concrete recommendations were formulated to the
member countries of the Mechanism in order to address the shortcomings
and inadequacies detected in their legal frameworks pertaining to the
denial of favorable tax treatment for concealed bribery payments;
deterrents to the bribery of domestic and foreign government officials;
criminal sanctions for transnational bribery and illicit enrichment; and
extradition of the perpetrators of acts of corruption.
Evaluations were also carried out during this Round on the progress made
by the countries in implementing the recommendations that were
formulated in the first two rounds. These dealt with the prevention of
conflicts of interest; the proper conservations of public resources; the
criminalization of acts of corruption and protection for those that
report these acts; encouragement of civil society participation in
anticorruption efforts; systems of government procurement of goods and
services and for the hiring of public servants; systems for registering
income, assets and liabilities of public servants; and international
legal cooperation for investigating and prosecuting acts of corruption.
The reports for the 27 countries reviewed in the Third Round are
available on the
Anti-Corruption Portal of the Americas.
Also available is the Hemispheric Report of the round, which was adopted
by the Committee at this meeting and which summarizes its results and
clearly sets out the most common recommendations and the progress made
by the countries as a whole in implementing the recommendations
formulated to them during the first two rounds.
Also worthy of note were the important decisions adopted for the
commencement of the Fourth Round, during which a comprehensive review
will be conducted of the oversight bodies for preventing, detecting, and
punishing acts of corruption. These referred to the methodology for
review, the questionnaire for gathering the relevant information from
the countries, the structure that the country reports are to follow, the
order in which the countries will be reviewed, the composition of the
review subgroups, and the timetable for the round. The documents in
question may be consulted at the link given above.
It should be recalled that at its Eighteenth Meeting, the Committee
adopted the methodology for conducting on-site visits. These planned
visits, which represent an innovative step in the review process, will
allow for an “on the field” knowledge of the way the Convention is being
implemented and will serve to strengthen the interactions with the
authorities responsible for its implementation and with civil society
organizations and other private sector organizations, professional
associations, academics and researchers interested in the fight against
corruption. Of the 31 member countries that currently make up the
MESICIC, 29 have granted their consent to receive on-visits during the
Fourth Round.
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Edition N° 75 - October 2011
The Mechanism For Follow-up on the
Implementation of the Inter-American
Convention against Corruption, known as MESICIC for its Spanish acronym, is a tool to
support the development of the Inter-American
Convention against Corruption through
cooperation between States Parties.
Read more
here…
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